For thrifty bibliophiles (like me)

Virginie Despentes on the Mommy Wars

“….motherhood has become the essential female experience, valued above all others. Giving life is where it’s at. ‘Pro-maternity’ propaganda has rarely been so extreme. They must be joking, the modern version of the double constraint: ‘have babies, it’s wonderful, you feel more fulfilled and feminine than ever,’ but do it in a society in freefall in which paid work is a condition of social survival, but is guaranteed to no one, and especially not to women…..

Without children you will never be fulfilled as a woman, but bringing up kids in decent conditions is almost impossible. It is essential that women feel like failures–that they be made to feel as if they’ve made the wrong choice. We are held responsible for a failure that is in fact collective and cross-gender.”

From King Kong Theory, translated from the French by Stephanie Benson

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on Tuesday, February 22nd, 2011 at 1:57 pm and is filed under Feminism.
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